Nintendo DS Homebrew and Hacking

wraggster writes "Natrium 42 has updated his site with many more pictures of his Passthrough Device for the Nintendo DS, called the PassMe. In other DS News, Desktopman has updated His Tetris Game with a 2 player mode on one DS. Also for those interested in DS Hacking you have the DS Homebrew Reference Site and finally Darkfader the original DS Hacker."

Comments

more pictures here

[dmf415]

slashdotted...
here are other sites with pictures of the device

http://www.dsgaming.co.uk/html/modules/news/arti cl e.php?storyid=230

http://www.darkain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=74 3

Download Play!

[American AC in Paris]

The DS is just begging for homebrew "Download Play" games. As I don't know a great deal about the inner workings of the system, what are the odds of the homebrew hackers coming out with a guide on how to turn your friendly neighborhood WiFi card/router into a DS "broadcast hub"?

DS + Computer + WiFi + Skills = Homebrew game - (funky hardware * distribution hurdles)

Re:Download Play!

[88NoSoup4U88]

There are allready hubs in Japan that allow to download demos of games (which stay on the DS as long as you don't power it off) ; or there were plans to do so.

I think it was also featured on /.

Re:Download Play!

[UWC]

Those are official Nintendo hubs, though, right? Reminds me of the floppy disk writing stations Nintendo apparently had in Japan when they released the disk drive for the Famicom. I want to say that Metroid was originally a floppy exclusive title, but I don't recall.

I've tried this

[KingOfTheNerds]

Watch out when trying to build a passme, I've tried to build one myself, and after I soldered it up it did not work no matter what I did. I think it might have been because I held the soldering iron on the pads too long. Just don't be too pissed off if you try to build it and it doesn't work, mine was a dud.

Re:I've tried this

[GeorgeMcBay]

I soldered it up it did not work no matter what I did.


King Of The Nerds title: revoked!

Forgot One

[drakethegreat]

The author forgot another great website http://www.darkain.com which has a lot of DS info involving WiFi hacking.

Great news.

[Enjoi]

What I always loved best about certain consoles, is that you could develop your own games for them. Made me feel like a real-life console developer.

That's why I loved the N64 and GBA.

Don't copy games illigally folks, etc.

Re:Great news.

[ajlitt]

Actually, PassMe isn't really any good for copying games. All it does is insert a little code into the cartridge loading scheme that says 'Hey! Look over here!' and branches to the memory on the GBA slot. Unless you can somehow change up the app on the card you're copying to load files out of GBA-space (yes, the DS cart uses a filesystem), you're stuck writing code designed just to run in that environment.

Which is good, since nothing puts bad light on the homebrew scene like people intending only to pirate games.

More Information at www.maxconsole.com

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more information online at www.maxconsole.com .

Re:Emulator

[Rude Turnip]

Can we possibly *not* taint the discussion of legitmate, homebrew gaming with someone that just wants to warez ROMS? Thanks.

Re:Obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have Linux running off a GBA cart on a GBA, and since the DS can play GBA games, yes.
Actually it is a uClinux port.

I love the DS

[bonch]

I love the DS, and I'd love to dev for it. But one thing that confuses me is Nintendo's vague stance about its future. Apparently, they plan a new Gameboy successor later this year and probably revealed at E3. However, most people don't consider the DS a "third-tier" and see it as the Gameboy successor. Not only will people get confused and upset after having already bought this system only to see new Gameboy come out, but developers will hold off on developing for the DS to wait and see what the new Gameboy will be like. Chance are they will program for the new Gameboy over the DS based on name recognition alone.

Does anyone have any info or links that better explain Nintendo's position on the future of the DS? Was it a one-shot deal? That's unfortunate if so, because it means there won't be a large library of games for this things. Already, it's pretty meager.

Boycott

[Xyl3ne]

Boycott http://nintendo-ds.dcemu.co.uk (the site in the newspost). It's run by an idiot (wraggster (if you're from the Dreamcast scene you'll know him)) who tries to be the whore of every scene there is. He throws up sites for every scene just to spam them all over and make money from the banner ads the sites are loaded with. Atleast if you're going to go there, block the ads.

Re:Offtopic: DS Gateways?

[xenocide2]

Most of them have been canned, saying its too hard. XLink Kai laughed in the face of those who were claiming they'd have tunnelling working within a week, as it then turned into month, into months. But their own efforts were equally abandoned around new year. I don't know if they really did just give up, or if they found out that warp pipe was going to be taking over anyways. (Expect Animal Forest DS to feature warp pipe tech)

In short, not yet, and not on the visible horizon.

Re:Emulator

[Evangelion]

The usage of the word "pirate" for copyright infringer is centuries old.

As early as 1755, it was used to describe people who copied books unlawfully.

I hear that there are people out there calling people who break into computers "hackers" instead of "crackers", though. Might want to go fight that battle.

Re:Err... Eeeh?

[Dwedit]

The passme takes in a DS cartridge (Metroid First Hunt). It sends a modified version of the ds cartridge header when it reads from the ds cartridge. The modified header changes the ARM7 Code Start to point to GBA cartridge space. Then the ARM7 code edits the ram and starts up the ARM9 with new code.

Re:Emulator

[OneHungLo]

Yes, GBA flash carts are compatible with the Nintendo DS. For DS homebrew, the passthrough connects to the DS cartridge slot, with a DS card (Metroid Prime: Hunters Demo, although the CRC can be adjusted for any game) to do the initial boot process, and then the passthrough intercepts some internal DS calls, and executed the DS code stored on the GBA cartridge.

For GBA homebrew, you can use the flash cart in a DS without a passthrough unit, operating in GBA mode.

Not only that

[mcc]

Look at this

The Play Yan media player, which allows music and movie playback on the GBA and DS, launched in Japan yesterday. Along with it, Nintendo opened a new section of their Play Yan site.

For your pleasure and amusement "Garage Games" are downloadable for the device, which can be saved to a Panasonic SD card via your PC. The first game available is Insect, and a new game will be unveiled each week until the twelve games are available. Upcoming games include BAT, which is a baseball-based game. A thirteenth game is available to Japanese Club Nintendo members only.

The download is around 650kb, and plays in a thumbnail sized area of your screen, where files are normally displayed.

If the DS only had available in America all the things that it does in Japan, it would be just like the coolest thing ever.

Re:Emulator

[UrlorJkron]

I would like to suggest replacing "computer hacker" with "e-viking," as hackers/crackers (what have you) pillage and often burn data.